


Drumbeat in Tribute

by icarus_chained



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Comrades in Arms, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Injury, Organized Crime, Prompt Fic, Violence, post-Changes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It used to be that mobsters in the morgue was the most alarming thing Butters thought a coroner might have to deal with. It had been a long few years since then, though a wounded Gentleman John Marcone was still pretty alarming.</p>
<p>Set between <i>Changes</i> and <i>Ghost Story</i>. Butters & Marcone, and the wars that continue no matter who has fallen in the interim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drumbeat in Tribute

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS for the end of _Changes_ , obviously.

It used to be, Butters thought hysterically, that a bunch of armed and panicky mobsters bursting into the morgue was the nadir of your day. It said a lot about his life these days that his second reaction, after the requisite yelp and leap behind the steel door of cold storage, was a rush of relief that it was _only_ the mob.

So far, anyway. It was only the mob _so far_.

It was also, he noted on second glance from behind his shield, Gentleman John Marcone, who was 'only' the mob in the same way the ocean was 'only' water. Gentleman John, fetched back up against the metal of the examining table, with an increasingly icy expression and one arm pressed tightly to a rapidly reddening side, plus a red-haired mountain of a man carrying what looked like a small machine gun, and a woman with a sword that Butters was reliably informed was actually a Valkyrie.

Joy. Because his day hadn't already been complete with two bizarre strangulations, and a well-decomposed customer that had only been on his table because Brzezinski was squeamish.

"Three left," the Valkyrie muttered, disturbingly calm, as she glared back around the outer door to Butters' bay. "They've fallen back. Too much cold steel in here." She turned, a faint and very alarming smile on her face. "We can hold here long enough to see to your injuries, I think."

The man-mountain grunted, presumably happily, but Marcone only smiled faintly. "Manners first, Ms Gard," he murmured, his voice smooth and utterly calm despite the steadily seeping stain under his arm. "We should ask permission first, don't you think?"

And they turned, all three of them, to the half-open door that was shielding Butters from view. And possibly bullets, though he was _really hoping_ he wasn't about to have to test that theory.

"Opening hours ended four hours ago," Butters heard himself saying. Rather distantly. "If you're looking for extracurricular, you want Bay 3. Brzezinski is more your street, I think?" Well, judging by his shiny new car, anyway, and for something born mostly of shock, Butters was surprised by the level of bitterness in his own thoughts. Of course, this _was_ Chicago. Pointedly _not_ seeing things paid considerably better around here.

For some reason, Marcone smiled at that. A thin, somewhat humourless smile, but a smile nonetheless. The bodyguard, behind him, snorted softly.

"My apologies for the lateness of the hour, Mr Butters," the mobster said, with urbane conciliation that would have done a diplomat proud. "We ran into some small difficulties, and needed somewhere with both medical supplies and large portions of cold steel. The morgue was closest, and yours appears to be the only bay still in operation at present."

... Naturally. Butters should have known Brzezinski would clock out as soon as humanly possible. Which was an odd thought to be focusing on, maybe, when large portions of his brain were busy tallying up 'small difficulties' and 'injuries' and 'three left' and 'cold steel', and coming up with answers that the rest of his brain and spine were none too fond of.

Not _just_ the mob. Of course not.

"... My medical kit is in the locker on your right," he found himself saying, after that one, long second. Stepping out from behind the steel of the door, and doing his level best not to flinch at the twitch of the man-mountain's hand, or the appraising eyebrow Marcone raised in his direction. "There's salt and chalk beside it, if that's of any use against whatever's going to be coming through that door. And a kevlar vest, toss that my way, would you?"

A three-way eyebrow raising competition, this time, and some nice shared glances to top it off. Butters resisted the slightly hysterical urge to growl at them, focusing on moving _very carefully_ towards the central island and the metal table that was currently holding an injured mobster off the floor. The silence stretched for a little bit, and then ...

"Salt is good," the Valkyrie murmured, with no little amusement and a casual, appreciative glance in his direction. Which did Butters' confidence _no favours_ , let him tell you. "Though I would be curious as to why the armour?" She grinned, the sword slipping into a sheath at her side as she accepted the bag of salt from the bodyguard. "I had not thought tending to the dead was so dangerous a profession these days."

Butters couldn't quite stop the snort, for all that most of him was focusing heavily on thoughts of _don't stab me_ as he drew abreast of Marcone and fluttered a questioning hand in the vague direction of the man's injury. "Two words," he said, with vague annoyance and maybe a touch of grief. " _Harry Dresden_." Marcone twitched, a little, an odd stillness rippling through him, and Butters tried not to think about that too closely. "If you don't like those two, you can also have 'evil necromancer', 'ghoul assassin' or 'zombie apocalypse'."

Or perhaps 'high-powered sniper rifle', but that was three words and a hyphen, probably more than the vest could handle, and not something he liked thinking about besides.

"... Hmm," Marcone murmured, watching him steadily, and helpfully raising his arm away from the jagged tear through two layers of cloth, a layer of kevlar, and his own flesh beneath it. "Yes. I think 'Harry Dresden' covers most of those," he agreed, with an odd little smile and a blank look in his eyes as he _so casually_ failed to flinch at the soft, exploratory touch of Butters' fingers against his side. Which was, Butters thought vaguely, about five times more alarming than it would have been had the heavily armed and protected _mob lord_ just flinched like a normal person and been done.

"You know," he said instead, words dropping into the chill stillness of the morgue like stones, strangely and worryingly casual himself, "it used to be that you people dropping by would be the most alarming thing that could happen to a coroner. Even accounting for this being Chicago." He looked up, into calm, lethal green eyes, into Johnny Marcone's faint smile, and found a little grin of his own creeping forward, lopsided and maybe an odd form of tribute to the silence and the sound of a gunshot over a lake. "Been an interesting few years, hasn't it?"

Gentleman John laughed. A soft, rueful sound, shockingly warm. Like the skin under Butters' fingers, the heat of flesh opened around a wound. Like the coiled, casual tensity of the muscles underneath, and the way they didn't turn on him.

"Yes," Chicago's Baron agreed, with a small twist of amusement, and maybe a faint tinge of regret. "Yes, it has been."

"... Boss?" the bodyguard interrupted, carefully and, Butters thought, almost gently, his massive hands holding out both Butters' medical kit and his vest. Things he maybe shouldn't be keeping, things that maybe belonged to a war Butters should have stepped out of by now. Things he still had to hand even still. "They won't be held back long. We should get you seen to pretty quick?"

"Mmm," Marcone murmured, his eyes shuttering for a second, his head tilting a little towards the other man, towards the massive bulk poised gently at his side. Pain, Butters saw now. Was let see now. From physical wounds, and maybe others too. Just for a second, while he leaned into his companion's shoulder and let Butters rest a careful hand over his wound, Gentleman John let that pain be visible.

And then, with that same faint smile on his face, and eyes that were suddenly as flat and cool and calm as they'd been when the three had burst into the bay, he straightened up, and became that other, more lethal thing once more. Urbane and smooth and utterly without ripple, for all the bloody rent in his side.

"If you would, Doctor?" the mobster asked, gesturing vaguely towards said rent, his smile both crooked and distant. "We would of course compensate you for your time and the risk involved ...?"

Butters snorted. Coming up to what there was of his full height, with a faint smile of his own and a twitch of his hand first towards the kit, then towards the vest.

"No thanks," he said, shortly and crisply and maybe, just a little, in tribute to someone no longer there. "Much as I'd like a new Jaguar to flaunt back at Brzezinski one of these days." He grinned, soft and glittering and as cheerfully defiant as one could be, in present company. "I'm not much good at being paid not to see things, you see."

He wasn't much good at not saying things like 'human-like but definitely non-human', he wasn't much good at putting away the kevlar vest, he wasn't much good at putting the drum down and leaving the march to someone else. He'd thought he would be, once upon a time. A lifetime and a zombie apocalypse ago. He'd thought, looking at Brzezinski's shiny new cars and his bosses with their hands in the right pockets, that maybe he could learn to not see the awkward things.

But polka would never die. Even if everything else did, even if wizards did. Even if friends did. Polka would never die, and Butters wasn't going to be getting into bed with mobsters _now_. Not even this mobster. Not even Johnny Marcone, with his green eyes and his casual pain and his faint stillness at the mention of Harry's name. Not even him. 

Waldo Butters mightn't be a man of much conviction. But some tributes, he thought, needed to be paid. And some marches to be played, even when the baton wielder had already fallen.

And Gentleman John ... looking down at him, so calm and cool and utterly, utterly lethal, with Butters' hand already in his blood and Butters' only defense still in his bodyguard's hand, watching him, listening to the echo of Harry in his desperate, faintly hysterical cheer ... for some reason, at that, Gentleman John smiled. Soft and warm and true.

"Yes," he murmured, king of the heap, only the mob the way water was only wet. "I do see, Mr Butters. Yes indeed."

And oh yes, that was alarming, that was maybe alarming the way even demons and zombie apocalypses couldn't be, because John Marcone was never really 'only' anything, but for some reason, maybe the ghost of Harry Dresden lurking somewhere nearby, Butters found himself grinning back regardless.

"Though, you know, if you wanted to do me a _favour_ ," he suggested, finally breaking open the kit and stripping back the mobster's useless shirt to get a look at the ... tentacle wound, of course, why not ... at the injury. "I wouldn't object if, say, you decided Brzezinski no longer needed _his_ shiny new car. Just, you know, for the purposes of evening the field?"

And he did think, listening to the Valkyrie's cool, appreciative laugh, and watching the faint crook of amusement through the pain lines of Marcone's mouth, that maybe he'd been right the first time. 

Mobsters in the morgue really wasn't the worst part of your day anymore.

Not even in Chicago.


End file.
